Kaduna Eastern bypass: Minister reads riot act to contractor

Minister of State, Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, Abubakar D. Aliyu, has read the riot act to the contractor handling the Kaduna Eastern Bypass project, saying he has no reason not to perform.

Daily Trust recalls that the road spanning from Kakau village along Kachia road to Mararaban Jos along the Kaduna-Zaria was awarded in 2002 but was abandoned over lack of payment.

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The contract was however reviewed in 2017 with a new completion deadline of 2021 and awarded to the same contractor, Eksiogulari Construction (Nig) Ltd.

However, the minister who led a delegation of the ministry on an inspection tour of the bypass, said the road was put on Sukuk funding with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) so the contractor has no reason not to perform.

According to the minister, “The project was put under Sukuk funding, the one the government is undertaking with the Islamic Development Bank (IDB) to ensure that the project has unlimited flow of funding in order to meet its completion deadline, so the contractor does not have any reason not to perform.”

He said the road is expected to be completed in 2021; “But with the way things are going, I think the contractor has some challenges which I believe he is working very hard to overcome.

“I was here in 2019 to see the progress of the road and I have come back again to see the level of achievement. From the last time that I came, it was decided that we will go round our projects on a high level supervision.

“I have just inspected section one on the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano project being handled by Julius Berger and then the Kaduna Eastern bypass. The level of progress is not as we expect because this project is on Sukuk funding, so the issue of funding should not be a problem, so I expected that the contractor would have done more work than I can see.

“We are working together with the contractor to see how we can help him surmount some of the highlighted challenges in order for the work to move rapidly as planned because the road construction is being done jointly by the state government. If we do not work together with the contractor, we will not achieve the desired result and that is why we visit the site constantly, to listen to them, hear their problems and see how we can solve them together.”

He noted that the contract was awarded since 2002, but it was abandoned.

Deputy Managing Director of the Eksiogulari Construction, Alhaji Jaafaru Baba, assured the minister that the project would be completed before the end of the transition period.